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Finding Cognates in “South Atlantic”

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Finding Cognates in “South Atlantic” 1 Michael Schulze Linguistic Colloquium, 29/06/2021 PhD student Seminar für Afrikawissenschaften Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Finding cognates in “South Atlantic” 1 Introduction 1.1 Background of this study PhD project: - historical-comparative reconstruction of the nominal classification systems in the Mel languages1 - dissertation embedded in the project “Noun classification systems in Africa between gender and nominal declension” at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, funded by the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft” and headed by Tom Güldemann (see Güldemann 2016) 1.2 The Mel languages within “South Atlantic” 1.2.1 “South Atlantic” Countries: Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia (see Eberhard et al. 2021) Traditional classification (adapted from Sapir 1971: 49): Niger-Congo Atlantic South Atlantic A. Sua B. Mel (including Gola) C. Limba Figure 1: External and internal classification of “South Atlantic” 1 Funding of the dissertation project: ‘Elsa-Neumann-Stipendium des Landes Berlin’ and ‘Deutsche Universitätsstiftung (Gerda-Henkel-Stipendium)’ 2 1.2.2 Mel - internal classification of Mel: two Branches (Northern Mel and Southern Mel), excluding Gola (adapted from Hammarström et al. 2021) Northern Mel Baga Koba Baga Manduri Baga Sitemu Landuma Temne Southern Mel Bullom Northern Bullom Bom-Kim (with Krim as a dialect) Bullom So (aka Mani, see Childs 2011) Sherbro Kisi Northern Kisi Southern Kisi Figure 2: Internal classification of the Mel languages 1.3 Goals and methods of this talk - The identification of cognate nouns in Mel is an important task to disentangle the complex developments of the nominal classification systems. - recognition of cognates within each of the two branches mostly straightforward - however: limited number of obvious cognates between Northern and Southern Mel → application of the classical historical-comparative method on the basis of regular sound correspondences → presentation of some complex sound correspondences between the two branches in this talk → through application of classical method detection of larger number of cognates possible → strict application of the method also leads to the identification of cognates between Mel and the two single languages of “South Atlantic” Limba and Gola, which have not been obvious at first sight - What is presented in this talk is work in progress rather than sophisticated results. So, the reconstructions presented are preliminary and are intended to make clear what results can be expected in future work. 3 1.4 Language sample and data 1.4.1 Language sample: - Northern Mel: Temne, Baga Koba, Baga Sitemu, Landuma - Southern Mel: Mani, Krim, Sherbro, Kisi - Gola - Limba - no data for Sua included 1.4.2 Data - 80-word-lists of nouns (modified Leipzig-Jakarta list) - data extracted from dictionaries and lexical lists, some from grammatical descriptions (see Table 1) - data presented in the orthography used in the sources - reconstructed forms presented in IPA Branch Language Data sources Northern Mel Temne Dalby 1966, Schlenker 1880, Bai-Sheka 1981, Kanu 2009, Kanu 2012, Kamarah 1994, Kamarah 2007, Wilson 2007, Wilson 1961, Yillah 1992 Baga Koba Relich 1973 Baga Sitemu Lamp 2016 Landuma Sumbatova 2012 Southern Mel Krim Pichl 1972, (Pichl 1976) Sherbro Pichl 1964 Mani Childs 2012, (Childs 2011) Kisi Childs 2000 Gola Westermann 1921 Limba Clarke 1922 Table 1: Data sources 4 1.5 Sapir’s lexicostatistical study - Sapir 1971: lexicostatistical study of Atlantic languages (based on Swadesh’s ‘First 100’) - results for “South Atlantic” (see Table 2): - high percentages within each branch of Mel (grey cells) - low percentages between Northern and Southern Mel (orange cells) - low percentages between Gola and Northern Mel, slightly higher percentages between Gola and Southern Mel (due to language contact?) - very low percentages between Limba and the other “South Atlantic” languages - very low percentages between Sua and the other “South Atlantic” languages (slightly higher between Sua and Northern Mel) Sua Sua NM Temne 19 Temne Baga Koba 19 79 Baga Koba SM Mani 14 24 21 Mani Sherbro 13 21 22 82 Sherbro Krim 14 20 19 68 73 Krim Kisi 14 22 23 57 52 50 Kisi Gola 14 23 21 31 28 31 25 Gola Limba 13 14 16 13 12 11 10 14 Limba Table 2: Lexicostatistical study of “South Atlantic” (adapted from Sapir 1971: 47) 2 Cognate search based on regular sound correspondences 2.1 Coronal consonants 2.1.1 Two voiceless coronal plosives as a regional feature - distinction of two t-sounds in Temne (Northern Mel), the Bullom (Southern Mel) languages Krim and Sherbro as well as in Limba - absence of this distinction in non-Temne Northern Mel, but regular sound correspondences with each of the two sounds can be observed - no such distinction in the remaining Southern Mel languages Mani (Bullom language closely related to Krim and Sherbro) and Kisi - so far, no other languages (e.g., surrounding Mande languages) known to have this contrast - possibly, the distinction first evolved in Temne and then spread to neighboring languages - comparative study of the distinction in different Temne dialects desirable 5 Temne: - Wilson (1961: 3): distinction of the sounds <t> and <th>, the latter being a voiceless interdental plosive (no information on phoneme status) - Yillah (1992): phonemic distinction of two t-sounds: - /t/ with the allophones [t] and [ʧ]2; both allophones in free variation before front vowel, only [t] before back vowel (Yillah 1992: 16-17); [t] is laminal and aspirated (Yillah 1992: 13) -/ʈ/3 (written <th>) as an apical retroflex stop without allophones (Yillah 1992: 12- 13, 18-19) - according to Yillah (1992: 18-19) difference in the manner of articulation of both sounds, possibly /ʈ/ bearing the feature [+RTR] with a “dampened” quality and lower pitch of the following vowel, whereas this feature is absent on /t/ Krim4 - <t> and <th> as distinct phonemes (Pichl 1972: 1) - <t> articulated postdental to alveolar; in initial position hard to distinguish from <th>, main difference is a stronger aspiration of <t>; pronunciation varies between [t], [ts] and [c]5; in final position nearly always [ts] or [t] with strong aspiration (Pichl 1972: 2-3) - <th>always dental, in initial position slightly aspirated (Pichl 1972: 2) Sherbro: - <t>near to English <t>, with strong aspiration and near to <ch>(<ch> as in English ‘chain’) (Pichl 1964: IX-X) - <th> like dental ‘t’, but not English ‘θ’ or ‘ð’ (Pichl 1964: X) - no information on phonemic status of the two sounds Limba: - voiceless alveolar plosive <t> distinguished from voiceless interdental plosive <th>; no information on phonemic status (Berry 1958: 169) - no distinction of the two sounds in Clarke’s dictionary (1922), invariably <t> is written 2 Yillah writes [č] 3 Yillah writes /ṭ/ 4 Pichl’s orthography used here, no IPA 5 like English <ch>, but with the tongue higher up to the palate with no or only slight aspiration (Pichl 1972: 3) 6 2.1.2 Sound correspondences of coronal voiceless plosives in Northern Mel 2.1.2.1 Temne /t / as a reflex of Proto-Northern-Mel *C -Temne /t/ reflex of Proto-Northern-Mel *C (plosive with possibly palatal or lamino-palato- alveolar articulation) blood sound correspondence Temne mə̀- t ì r t Baga Koba ma- ts i r ts Baga Sitemu mə- ts i r ts Landuma mə- c i r c Proto-NM *ma- C i r *C Table 3: Reflexes of Proto-Northern-Mel *C - reflex can be [tʃ] in Baga Sitemu, e.g. a-tshen ‘dog’ 2.1.2.2 Temne /t/̪ as a reflex of Proto-Northern-Mel *t - Temne /t/̪ (Yillah 1992: /ʈ/) reflex of Proto-Northern-Mel *t (plosive with apico-dental or apico-alveolar articulation) (fire)wood sound correspondence Temne ɛ- t ̪ ɔ k6 t ̪ Baga Koba e- t o k t Baga Sitemu ku- t ɔ k t Landuma kə- t ɔ k t Proto-NM *t ɔ k7 *t Table 4: Reflexes of Proto-Northern-Mel *t 2.1.3 Reflexes of Proto-NM *C and *t in Southern Mel - Proto-Northern-Mel *C can be traced back to two different Proto-Mel consonants; in the first series, it corresponds to Proto-Southern-Mel *t (see Table 5), in the second to Proto-SM *s (see Table 6) - unclear, which Proto-Mel consonants have to be reconstructed in these cases - Proto-Northern-Mel *t originates in Proto-Mel *t (see Table 7) 6 Schlenker’s (1880: 398) original orthography: e-̱ toḵ ‘firewood’ 7 Where possible, prefixes are also reconstructed. 7 2.1.3.1 Proto-NM *C – Proto-SM *t dog sound correspondence Kisi citation form8 Temne ɑ̀- t ə̀ n t Baga Koba a- ts i n ts Baga Sitemu a- tsh e n tʃ Landuma a- c e n c Proto-NM *C V n *C Mani °ù- t ù m ɛ̀ t Krim th u n gbayɛ t ̪ Sherbro ø- th u m ɔɛ t ̪ Proto-Bullom t ̪ u m *t ̪ Kisi √ t ù ŋ t tùŋ=ndó Proto-SM *t u N *t Proto-Mel ? ? Table 5: Proto-NM *C vs. Proto-SM *t - Proto-Northern Mel *C could have originally been an allophone of *t before high vowels, so that *t would have to be reconstructed 2.1.3.2 Proto-NM *C – Proto SM *s dog sound correspondence Kisi citation form Temne ɑ̀- t ɔ́ ↓k ɔ́ t Baga Koba ta- ts o k o ts Baga Sitemu a- ts ɔ k ɔ ts Landuma a- c ɔ g ɔ c Proto-NM *C ɔ k ɔ *C Mani °ì- s ɔ̀ k s Krim s ɔ g s Sherbro ø- s ɔ k s Proto-Bullom *s ɔ k *s Kisi √ s ɔ̀ɔ́ s sɔ̀ɔ́ Proto-SM *s ɔ (k) *s Proto-Mel ? ? Table 6: Proto-NM *C – Proto SM *s 8 = root + class-speficific enclitic 8 - a reconstruction of *s for Proto-Mel is not probable because there is already a clear correspondence of Proto-Northern Mel *s and Proto-Southern-Mel *s (see Table 8); possibly, the sound to be reconstructed here is a Proto-Mel *ʃ 2.1.3.3 Proto NM *t – Proto-SM *t – Proto-Mel *t - series in Table 7 is the only one which has been found for this correspondence -
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